Root Beer Summers

August 14, 2011 by The Minnesota Farm Woman

I don’t want to come across sounding like Grandma Moses, but when I was a kid, we didn’t open the refrigerator to find cans of pop to drink whenever we were thirsty. Life was simple. For breakfast we drank orange juice. For lunch or supper, milk. If you didn’t want those choices, you got water. Not in a plastic bottle to carry around and add to the landfill, but water from the kitchen faucet. If we were playing outside, we drank out of the garden hose and passed it around from one kid to the next. Vikan the dog drank right along with us, but I’m not sure that the neighborhood moms knew that. Sometimes on hot summer Sunday evenings, Dad would drive us to the local A&W for a frosted mug filled with root beer. The car hop would somehow attach a tray to the car’s window, and the whole family would enjoy an icy cold drink while sitting in the car. I would wait for that tray to fall, but it never did. It sounds strange now, I know, but it was a lot of fun and we looked forward to it. At least once during the summer and twice if we were lucky, Dad would haul up the big crock from the basement and we would make our own root beer. It was an old-fashioned thing to do, even then. Mom would mix extract, yeast, sugar, and water and we would take turns stirring it with a long wooden spoon to dissolve the sugar before pouring it into bottles and capping them. We had a large collection of painted-label pop bottles from the 1950’s and 1960’s which we would use over and over. Each of us had our favorite bottles, and my sister or her friends had better not take mine! We had to wait then, for the magic to happen. The root beer had to “ripen” for the fizz to form, then you only had about a week or two to drink it before it got too strong and made the bottles explode. That week or two was a happy time for us, as we got to drink pop every day, sometimes even twice a day. My dad loved it, too, as he had a sweet tooth and liked it as much as we did, often making us root beer floats for a nighttime snack. We shared this bounty with our friends, and they also loved that strong yeasty flavor of home-made root beer. After my dad died and Mom was preparing to sell the house, we hauled the crock and the baskets of bottles up one last time for the estate sale. Of all the things we sold, those were the hardest for me to let go. I wasn’t around for the sale, but some of the neighborhood kids, now adults, told me they bought their favorite bottle to keep as a memory of their childhood. I already had taken my favorite, though, carefully wrapped and packed into my suitcase. Ironically, the yellow painted label says “Dad’s Root Beer”.

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

14 Responses

on August 14, 2011 at 11:57 am | Reply Jackie Garvin

Chris,

What a lovely post! Thank you for sharing this special memory with the whole big world. I dearly love this story. I’ve never made homemade root beer but you clearly describe to us how important that was to you.

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on August 14, 2011 at 12:27 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman

Thank you, Jackie. I would love to make it now, but my adult mind keeps thinking about all that sugar and somehow, it wouldn’t be quite the same. Perhaps when I have grandchildren…..

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on August 14, 2011 at 2:17 pm | Reply Linda Sutherland

I have the same memory of the taste of my family’s homemade root beer. It was so very good. (I remember your dad as well.)

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- on August 14, 2011 at 2:54 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman
  
  Thanks for reading and for commenting, Linda. I’m glad that others know how good it was!
  Chris
  
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on August 14, 2011 at 2:21 pm | Reply Dianne Alto

This one brought tears to my eyes, Chris. My fondest memories of Christmas center around potato sausage and homemade root beer (even the lutefisk, although I never ate any and abhorred the smell). You also made me think of your dad and his bowl of ice cream every night and his maple syrup. Sure do miss him.

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- on August 14, 2011 at 2:52 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman
  
  Oh, potato sausage. I am going to make some, minus the casings. Thanks for the compliment….I miss him, too, and your sweet mother. XXXOOO
  
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on August 14, 2011 at 3:39 pm | Reply Michelle Lintvedt

To this day I STILL love A&W Root Beer. We, too, would occasionally get to go to the A&W drive-inn. There was nothing like it. Don’t know if any exist anymore.

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on August 14, 2011 at 4:23 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman

There is one in Cohasset, but I don’t know if you can get it in a mug. My guess is only a paper cup. Thanks for reading and for commenting, AND best of all, for being my first subscriber!

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on August 14, 2011 at 8:13 pm | Reply The Loon Whisperer

I am remembering those root beer summers at the big house on the corner tonight with a tear in my eye. If I close my eyes, I can taste your dad’s “home brew” and I think of him with such fondness. Thanks for the memories….

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on August 14, 2011 at 8:19 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman

Thanks….I miss him a lot.

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on August 15, 2011 at 1:00 pm | Reply Deb Weyrich-Cody

Oh, you’ve brought tears to my eyes again: that’s twice in the space of one week (they’re good tears though: ) Imagine being “forced” to drink pop AND rootbeer floats? Thanks for sharing your lovely childhood memories. xo D.

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on August 15, 2011 at 5:15 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman

Thank you, Deb.

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on June 15, 2013 at 2:31 pm | Reply Su Dyer Shea

I can remember the ole A&W too. I remember it was the only fries I put salt and vinegar on. (oh and ketchup) Great story MS. MFW !

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- on June 15, 2013 at 5:20 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman
  
  Thank you, Su!
  
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